and so univerfally. It could not well be degenerate till the knowledge of nature was loft, as its words confift but of two or three letters, and are perfectly well fuited to convey fenfible and ftrong ideas. It was at the captivity (2), in the space of feventy years, that the Jews, by temporifing with the ignorant victors, fo far neglected the ufage of their own tongue, that none but the fcribes or learned men could understand Mofes's books.

This I confefs (Mifs Noel faid) is a plaufible account of the primavity and pre-eminence of the facred Hebrew, but I think it is not neceffary the account fhould be allowed as fact. As to its being the language in Paradife, this is not very probable, as a compafs of 1800 years must have changed the firft language very greatly by an increafe of words, and new inflections, applications, and conftructions of them. The few firft inhabitants of the earth were occupied in few things, and wanted not a

(2) The captivity began at Nebuzaradan's taking and burning the city and temple of Jerufalem, and fending Zedekiah, the laft King, in chains, to Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered his children to be butchered before his face, his eyes to be put out, and then thrown into a dungeon, where he died. This happened before our Lord 588 years; after the flood, 1766; of the world 3416.

variety

variety of words; but when their defcendants invented arts and improved fciences, they were obliged to coin new words and technical terms, and by extending and transferring their words to new fubjects, and using them figuratively, were forced to multiply the fenfes of those already in ufe. The language to be fure was thus gradually cultivated, and every age improved it. All living languages are liable to fuch change. I therefore conclude, that the language which ferved the first pair would not do for fucceeding generations. It became vastly more copious and extenfive, when the numbers of mankind were great, and their language must ferve converfation and the ends of life, and answer all the purposes of intelligence and correfpondence. New words and new terms of fpeech, from time to time were neceffary, to give true ideas of the things, actions, offices, places, and times peculiar to the Hebrews, Even Hutchinfon allows there was fome coinage, fome new words framed. We find in the latter prophets words not to be met with in the Pentateuch: and from thence we may fuppofe, that Mofes ufed words unknown to Nimrod and Heber: and that the men at Shinaar (3) had words which the people be

fore

(3) Shinaar comprehends the plains of Chaldea or Babylonia in Afia; and the men of Shinaar were the D 4 firft

fore the flood were ftrangers to. Even in the feventeenth century, there must have been a great alteration in the language of Adam; and when the venerable Patriarch and his family came into a new world, that was in a different ftate from the earth before the deluge, and faw a vast variety of things without precedent in the old world, the alterations in nature and diet, muft introduce a multitude of new terms in things of common experience and ufage; as, after that amazing revolution in the natural world, not only the clouds and meteors were different, and the fouls that were faved had a new and astonishing view of the ruin and repair of the system; but Noah did then begin to be an husbandman; he planted a vineyard; he invented wine; and to him the first grant was given of eating flesh. these things required as it were a new language, and the terms to be fure with mankind encreased. The Noachical language must be quite another thing after the great events of the flood. Had Methuselah, who conversed many years with Adam, who re

All

first colony that Noah fent out from Ararat, the mountains of Armenia, where the Ark refted after the flood, to fettle in the grand plains of Babylonia, 1200 miles from Ararat. This was in the days of Peleg, 240 years after the flood, when the eight had encreased to fixty thousand; which made a remove of part of them neceffary.

ceived from his mouth the hiftory of the creation and fall, and who lived 600 years with Noah, to communicate to him all the knowledge he got from Adam; had this Antediluvian wife man been raised from the dead to converfe with the poftdiluvian fathers, or even with Noah, the year he died, that is, 350 years after the flood; is it not credible, from what I have faid, that he would have heard a language very different from that tongue he used in his converfations with Adam, even in the 930th year of the first man (4)? I imagine, Methuselah

(4) The extraordinary longevity of the Antideluvians is accounted utterly incredible by many moderns; but it Longevity did not appear fo unnatural to the early ages of Pa- of the Anganifm.-Let no one (fays Jofephus) upon comparing tediluvians. the lives of the antients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have faid of them is falfe. I have for witnefs to what I have faid, all those who have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians. For even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian Hiftory; and Berofus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments; and Mochus and Hofticus; and befides thefe, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and thofe who compofed the Phoenician hiftory, agree to what I here fay. Hefiod alfo, and Hecutæus, and Hallanicus, and Acufilaus; and befides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus of Damafcus, relate that the antients lived 1000 years.

The antient Latin authors likewife confirm the facred hiftory in this branch: and Varro, in particular, made an enquiry, What the reason was that the antients lived a 1000 years.

See a continuation of this 4th note in the appendix.

would

would not have been able to have talked with Noah, at the time I have mentioned, of the circumftances that then made the cafe of mankind, and of the things of common experience and ufage. He must have been unable to converse at his first appearance.

What you fay, Madam, (I replyed) is not only very probable, but affords a fatisfaction unexpected in a subject on which we are obliged, for want of data, to use conjectures. I offer up to your fuperior fenfe the notion, that the Scriptures were wrote in the language of Paradife. Moft certain it is, that even in refpect of our own language, for example, the fubjects of Henry the ift, would find it as much out of their power to understand the English of George the ft's reign, were they brought up again, as the ordinary people of our time are at a lofs to make any thing of the English written in the ift Henry's reign. But when I have granted this, you will be pleased to inform me, how Abraham and his fons converfed and commerced with the nations, if the Hebrew was not the universal language in their time? If the miracle at Babel was a confufion of tongues, as is generally fuppofed, how did the boly family talk and act with fuch diftant Kings and people? Illuminate me, thou glorious girl in this dark article, and be my teacher in Hebrew learning, as I flatter

my